


Cadence

by sunflashes



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 14:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflashes/pseuds/sunflashes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which helpless pawns fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cadence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [epistolic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistolic/gifts).



When Tarr sees the solemn, composed face of George Smiley, he knows.

"There was… nothing you could do." It's not a question.

"No. I would say I'm sorry, but it won't make a difference." Smiley doesn't lay a hand on Tarr's shoulder, doesn't offer an embrace. He simply looks down at his soft brown shoes as Tarr nods numbly. 

"I appreciate it." 

"There was nothing anyone could do." Smiley's clipped words conjure an image of a small room, the walls spattered with skull fragments, gray matter, thick streaks of blood.

"I'm sure." Tarr pulls his sheepskin coat around him tightly, bracing against winds he cannot really feel, and puts one foot in front of the other until he reaches the door. 

\---

There are no photographs to burn. No dossiers to shred. No safes to empty. There is only Ricki and a sickly-colored glass of brandy curled up on a leather couch that he never really liked anyway. 

Somewhere in the etchings carved into his brandy snifter are the answers, Ricki is sure of it, the memories. The precise shade of her eyes. Which side of her rose-petal smile was graced by the small, lovely blemish of a birthmark.

She fades, and there are no photographs to treasure, to kiss, to cry over, to burn.

\---

There is no funeral, no memorial because no one else knows.

\---

Peter Guillam cannot meet his eyes, and Tarr sees it. That flash of ill-concealed sympathy.

"I…" Guillam tries one day as they catch each other on the bleached, white staircase, hand clenched bone-tight to the gleaming black banister.

"No." Tarr chokes, brushing past him. 

\---

On one of his ephemeral, rare days at the Circus, Ricki Tarr finds a pawn in a desk drawer labeled "IRINA" in an administrative scrawl and he falls to his knees. His hands shake violently. His throat clicks; dry sobs heave his back.

\---

The knock on his door is hesitant. Surreal.

Ricki opens it, eyes red, lips bitten raw. Shirtless. Aching.

Peter Guillam is on the other side, tense, concerned, wretched from lack of sleep.

"Come in." Ricki is so far past pretenses at this point that he wrenches the door back carelessly and beckons the other man sharply. 

"I…" Guillam tries again as he shuts the wooden door behind him, and as Ricki wearily takes a seat on the couch, he lets him speak. "I know."

"And?" Derision drips from Ricki's one syllable.

"And." Guillam perches cautiously on the other end of the couch. He looks uncertain, uncomfortable, genuinely unhappy. "And for all the fucking good it will do you, or me for that matter, I am sorry."

Ricki bites down hard on his tongue. He nods sharply, throat burning.

"I didn't want to doubt you." The sentiment is abrupt and awkward. Ricki feels tears at the corners of his eyes. He is glad his lamps are dim. "You never." Guillam's inhalation is shaky. "You never told me. All that time and not one word." 

"It's my job to keep secrets." A tear escapes the reddened rim of Ricki's eye and slicks a clear, glinting trail down his cheek. 

"I was worried." Guillam's words do not match his tone, flush with horror and dread, regret and slight hysteria, and a stronger, deeper undercurrent. "I was so _worried_ -" He presses a hand to his mouth to stifle a convulsive sob and Ricki feels the softest, most horribly sweet pulsing in his fingertips, his lips are buzzing and heart is hammering its beats because Guillam worried, Guillam cared, Guillam _loved_...?

Ricki extends his hand, feeling tears trace the curves of his face, Guillam's hand is positively trembling and so cold and Guillam's lips are soft and barely wet and Ricki seals their mouths together gently and Guillam's lips wrench open in a sob.

Ricki captures the sound, swallows it himself, bites at Guillam's bottom lip and pulls Peter to him.

"I was so-"

"Shh…"

"So…"


End file.
